This is one of those basic topics that is really easy to take for granted – everyone knows how to pray, right?  The thing is, there are so many types and places and depths of prayer that even though it’s simple enough for a tiny child, it’s also something that we’ll all spend our lives learning to do well.

This lesson moves in a couple directions.  First we are going to take a look at the four main parts of prayer using the Our Father as the “recipe.”  Petition, Thanksgiving, Intercession, and Adoration are all words that may not be part of your kids’ vocabularies, but this lesson redefines them in terms anyone can understand.

The second major direction deals with issues we all have with prayer – consistency, distraction, focus … the parts we keep working on well after we understand the basics.  For this part, the Pauline family has lots of practical advice for pray-ers of all ages!

One more practical tip – the Prayer Tree activity is a great one to do with your younger kids (or assign your older kid to lead your younger ones through it).  The only drawback is that the leaves can be a pretty challenging outline for a kindergartner with a safety scissors to follow.  If you think it’s going to be too frustrating for your little ones, cut out all the leaves ahead of time and spend your energy focusing on the different types and places for prayer instead of dealing with a scissors-related meltdown.